


Emergency Protocols

by Tarlan



Series: Emergency Colors [6]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Character Study, Community: fanfic100, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-22
Updated: 2007-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feeling alone, Rodney reflects on Daniel and Jack, and finds a little comfort in the company of a stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emergency Protocols

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfic100 prompt 018: Black.

For as long as he could recall, Rodney had loved looking at the stars. As a child he would turn out the light in his room and sit by the window, gazing up through the city haze into the night sky. He knew the names of the major constellations before he was five years old, and had seen spiral galaxies through a homemade telescope by the time he was eight. His parents bought him a better telescope for his ninth birthday, and he spent hours gazing at the surface of the moon or seeking out the planets in the solar system, working out their orbits so he could accurately predict where to watch for them on the next available night.

The math came easy to him, the form of an equation as beautiful as the stars above him, filled with endless possibility. Black holes, supernova, red giants and colliding galaxies – the universe was unfolding right above his head so he’d known from early on that he wanted his life to revolve around the stars and mathematics.

He became an astrophysicist, one of the very best in his field, for his mind wrapped around concepts with ease, teasing out the solutions and swiftly discrediting the theories of others. It was inevitable that he would be approached by some country’s military one day to work with them, though he never quite bought into the cover story of Deep Space Telemetry even though the subject was amazing to him.

Once he had signed all the right documents, he was allowed to see everything the US government had kept secret from the rest of the world. Admittedly, he’d been angry at first, especially when he discovered that his exclusion had been simply because of his nationality. So many of the best and brightest had been left to work within the darkness of human knowledge due to American paranoia and, yes, a little selfishness in wanting to keep all this technology and its potential power to themselves - or so he saw it at the time. Rodney wasn’t sure of the specifics but he believed he had the Goa’uld and the Asgard to thank for the US military finally accepting scientists from other nationalities, even if they had to be sworn to secrecy and were not allowed to publish their work without prior approval.

The anger was subsumed quickly by the sheer delight of discovery. Rodney felt like a boy again, looking at the universe through a child’s eyes and filled with awe for all the new possibilities stretching out before him. He grasped it all quickly, reveling in his superiority and intellect, until he met his match in Sam Carter.

She was everything a genius could want, and all wrapped up in a beautiful blond-haired package, except for the one aspect of her work that he could never accept, which was her tendency to be fast and loose with the science. The Stargate was a case in point. When the Stargate was found in Egypt, it had no DHD and she had been instrumental in building one. That should have sealed her genius except she overlooked dozens of the protocols set into a true DHD that would ensure the protection of the traveler. When he questioned her over them, she didn’t even seem to care, citing a need to get the project up and running as more important than the lives of the people who would cross the event horizon. The Stargate was working so what did it matter that it might connect to a black hole, or give no protection against a solar flare? What did it matter if someone got trapped in the buffer because the protocol to re-materialize that person was not in place?

It seemed it only mattered when things went wrong and the person trapped was someone she cared about.

Somehow, she managed to twist it so he ended up the bad guy and was the one exiled to Russia. He should have hated her for that but he couldn’t because she had, at least, moved whole governments to help her correct her mistakes whereas he had wanted to write-off that trapped person rather than risk destroying the only real DHD on the planet.

Despite the cold, the terrible food and the language barrier, Russia was...actually, Russia was terrible, especially as they were still smarting over the loss of their DHD. He never fit in there as they were more paranoid than the Americans. Rarely did he see the outside of the research station, with his quarters on the site and his freedom limited to the area covered by the parking lot. The Russian soldiers guarding the compound got used to seeing him sitting on the inner side of the fence, staring up into the night sky as he studied the stars. The sky was clearer there than back in his hometown in Canada; it was darker and the stars shone brighter, making it easier to recall which of them contained worlds where humans had been enslaved for millennia by the Goa’uld.

Weirder still, he knew that the people of Earth were known to many in the galaxy, if only in legend, and that they had a name: the Tau’ri.

The work was good though, and he had a chance to play with a real Stargate as well as work on modifications to the Naquadah generators, producing something far more compact, something portable, something that one day would help in a battle to save the planet from Anubis.

Rodney knew he’d be recalled to Stargate Command eventually, and by then he had managed to accept that Sam’s haphazard assignment of the Stargate’s emergency protocols was expediency rather than neglect, working to tight budgets and time constraints, having to take short cuts or risk never getting to the end of the journey. He did notice that she had taken the time to install a few of those missing protocols whenever an opportunity arose but, for once, he said nothing even though he had every reason to gloat.

She was still beautiful, and smart, and blond; he preferred his women that way. Admittedly, he wasn’t given a lot of time to socialize because there was the whole ‘Anubis is trying to destroy the Earth’ problem but she had kissed him on the cheek after the Earth was saved. In hindsight, he realized now that the kiss had been for saving O’Neill.

Jack O’Neill: Intergalactic space hero, beloved of both Daniel and Sam, except Sam didn’t realize that Jack was in love in Daniel, her unrequited love forcing them to keep their relationship a complete secret rather than hurting her. It had made everything awkward between Jack and Daniel, denying them even a simple goodbye.

Rodney stared at the frozen face as he did every time he had to pass by the alcove. Daniel had insisted O’Neill had forgiven him for writing off Teal’c. After all, Rodney's quick thinking had saved O’Neill from being sucked into the wormhole with the stricken Stargate and destroyed alongside it. It was Rodney's first time at being instrumental in saving the planet, taking an active role for once.

She had kissed him.

Okay, so it was only a peck on the cheek but it had meant she had forgiven him for Teal'c too. He returned to Russia with a lighter heart, only to be hauled out of his bed a few months later to help save the world again. It took two weeks before the rest of his belongings caught up with him in Antarctica, two weeks with just his trusty orange fleece and army issue clothing and supplies but Rodney never noticed the discomfort because he was standing in the chair room of an Ancient outpost.

Despite his rants and raves over incompetence, international scientists like Peter Grodin, Helga Uzenko, and that little Czech engineer whose name he could never remember had made a huge difference. They were the best in their respective fields and even the US Military had to be impressed with the advances made since taking on some of the international scientists. Of course, a few of the US scientists were disgruntled at being ousted by their international counterparts. Kavanagh was still making life hell for him, convinced that he should have been offered the lead scientist position.

None were more enthusiastic than Daniel though - excluding himself of course. Daniel's joy in his work was infectious, and even Kavanagh had been known to smile around him. They were all relying on Daniel in one form or another, needing him to perform miracles and help them make sense of the amazing technology by translating the database and the inscriptions on the walls. Not that there was a huge amount of technology sitting in the outpost because its main function had been to protect Earth, a job that it had done admirably well with O'Neill in the chair, mind almost torn apart by the sheer amount of data downloaded into his brain by an Ancient device. Rodney wished he could have spoken with O'Neill during those few days when he had been cognitive enough to speak with them, wished he could have been the one to have that tremendous knowledge, to know all that *they* had known but the price had been high. Too high, if the Asgard never returned to fix the damage to his mind, as they had done last time.

That's what amazed Rodney the most, the fact that O'Neill had done this before and yet he still stuck his head in the machine a second time, aware that he might not survive.

Sad.

The face before him, frozen in time, looked sad and lonely.

The readings implied there was minimal brain activity but how much was minimal to the mind of an Ancient? Did O'Neill know about Daniel sneaking into his room the night before he left to save the Earth yet again? Did he witness the pleasure he and Daniel had found together for those few short hours, assuaging the loneliness that each felt out of a weird sense of companionship. Did O'Neill understand that it wasn't love or even lust that had brought them together, but loneliness? Not that he would ever kick Daniel out of his bed for any reason because the man was hot. Daniel had the softest skin and a deep well of comfort in his eyes as if he recalled all that he had seen while ascended and understood the entirety of the universe, but just needed the affirmation of being alive, of feeling warm flesh against his own from time to time.

Rodney had slept well that night despite the sex being a little rougher than he would normally allow, with too little preparation and too much desperation. He had slept without his usual nightmares wearing him down, with a soul-deep satisfaction as the heat of Daniel's body pressed against his side, seeping into his cold flesh. That night, he'd been warm for the first time since Colorado.

"I..." He glanced around to ensure no one was too close to overhear, feeling a little stupid talking to the frozen man. "I hope you didn't mind, especially after Daniel mentioned you don't dislike me so much anymore after the whole saving you from an explosive death thing."

He didn't expect O'Neill's expression to change but found he was watching carefully anyway, studying the lines on the man's face and the way that the ambient blue light made the silver in his hair shimmer. With a sigh, Rodney turned away and continued towards the elevator, carrying outdoor clothing. Sometimes he simply needed to sit and watch the stars, to let the cares of the day wash away in a sea of black broken only by the white pinpoints of distant suns and nebulae.

He did not do this often because the weather was unpredictable and entirely too cold for even his Canadian blood, but no one ever stopped him from stepping outside, though they eyed him curiously, making note of his presence. No doubt, some poor soldier would be set to watch over him and make sure he didn't decide to wander off into the snow but, otherwise, they would leave him alone, so Rodney was surprised when someone sat down close by a few minutes later. He couldn't make out the soldier's face as it was cast in shadow beneath the fur-lined hood, but he appreciated that the man made no attempt to strike up a conversation, even if he could have been heard with the muffling effects of their clothing. After all, the temperature was well below zero. However, Rodney had talked all day long, debating this and that, dishing out orders and theories so, sometimes, he needed this rare moment of solitude.

Daniel had understood that, often sitting with him in a silence broken only by the occasional request to 'pass the salt' as they worked on separate documents strewn across the same table. Somehow, this had managed to deter all but the most foolhardy from interrupting their peace, though they rarely made the same mistake twice unless it really was something of grave importance.

Rodney looked at the man's concealed profile and sighed. He'd spent most of his life in the northern hemisphere so it always seems a little strange to see the southern sky, and he wondered if his silent guard, who was no doubt part of the US military, felt the same. The silence remained between them and Rodney found himself relaxing a little, feeling the vastness of space easing the troubles in his mind and stilling his thoughts. He knew the soldier was glancing at him from time to time but he felt no animosity pouring from the man, only peace.

Eventually, Rodney shivered as the cold seeped through his clothing, finally deciding that he'd had enough despite the quiet companionship of the other man. He pushed back through the door and looked over his shoulder as the man turned in a different direction, throwing back his hood as he walked away. Rodney was unable to see him clearly, gaining just an impression of dark, messy hair defying gravity, reminding him of the helicopter pilot who had brought the emergency protocol book last time around, the night of the storm a few weeks back. He realized, with a start, that it might actually be the same man but he had turned the corner before Rodney could call out. Though maybe that was for the best as only the military stationed at the site were privy to the secret lying beneath their feet, and that might not include a pilot flying out of McMurdo whose helicopter had suffered a minor engine problem on the flight over.

As he stepped into the elevator, heading back down into the now not-quite-so-cold-feeling outpost, Rodney brightened as thoughts of the pilot turned to the man's cargo. There *had* been a supply drop a few hours earlier, and that meant there would be fresh pastries to go with the coffee.   
As he willed the elevator to go faster, Rodney only wished he had someone to share his midnight snack.

END


End file.
